Succumbed Quotes

Her little hands, Crumb. Her little paws, like a child's. She has no guile in her. And she never speaks. And if she does I hate to bend my head to hear what she says. And in the pause I can hear my heart. Her little bits of embroidery, her scraps of silk, her halcyon sleeves, she cut out of the cloth some admirer gave her once, some poor boy struck with love for her...and yet she has never succumbed. Her little sleeves, her seed pearl necklace...she has nothing...she expects nothing...' A tear at last sneaks from Henry's eye, meanders down his cheek and vanishes into the mottled grey and ginger of his beard. ~ Hilary Mantel

Thankfully existing only in SMALL pockets within our discipline, is "intellectual" snobbery. It's a hushed but ugly truth that people are made to feel not worthy to be among a certain set – didn't attend the right school or don't have the requisite abbreviations to follow their name. I know what that feels like. Good thing I'm pigheaded, have a bigger vision and committed to my craft, or I would've succumbed to it long ago. That is why when I meet an emerging writer who's serious about developing their craft, I try to encourage them as much as I can. I say IGNORE the highbrow cliques and prove your mettle by growing, accepting balanced feedback and most of all, creating work that will stand the test of time. Period. ~ Sandra Sealy

How can we who are so weak in ourselves, so inferior in power to the enemies confronting us, bear up under our trials which are so numerous, so protracted, so crushing? We could not, and therefore Divine grace has provided for us an all-sufficient Helper. Without His aid we had long since succumbed, mastered by our trials. Hope looks forward to the Glory to come; in the weary interval of waiting, the Spirit supports our poor hearts and keeps grace alive within us. ~ Arthur W. Pink

At times, I feel sorry for kids who have succumbed in some kind of way to being a child actor. ~ Tia Mowry

The United States has already passed on as the world's economic leader. Having flouted Thomas Jefferson for too long, America has succumbed to public debt, the 'fore horse for oppression and despotism,' after which 'taxation will follow, and in its train wretchedness and oppression. ~ Ilana Mercer

What you had to have is usually tabulated as follows: luck; the ability to adapt, immediately and radically; a talent for inconspicuousness; solidarity with another individual or with a group; the preservation of decency ("the people who had no tenets to live by - of whatever nature - generally succumbed" no matter how ruthlessly they struggled); the constantly nurtured conviction of innocence (an essential repeatedly emphasised by Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago); immunity to despair; and, again, luck. ~ Martin Amis

Germany's highest commander succumbed to a disease common among senior soldiers of many nationalities and eras: he wished to demonstrate to his government and people that their vastly expensive armed forces could fulfil their fantasies. ~ Max Hastings

We are brainwashed about a Woman's beauty...So true!
Majority of women have succumbed to men's and media's idea of beauty which is nothing but a 'commercial farce ~ Abha Maryada Banerjee

The sixth and last eulogy was from Roderick, Hugo and Verna's oldest child. He wrote a three-page tribute to his father, and it was read by the reverend. Even Michael Geismar, a cold-blooded Presbyterian, finally succumbed to his emotions. The ~ John Grisham

He had hoped she would assume he had succumbed again to methamphetamine hydrochloride and was sparing her the agony of his descent back into the hell of chemical dependence. What it really was was that he had again decided those 50 grams of resin-soaked dope, which had been so potent that on the second day it had given him an anxiety attack so paralyzing that he had gone to the bathroom in a Tufts University commemorative ceramic stein to avoid leaving his bedroom, represented his very last debauch ever with dope, and that he had to cut himself off from all possible future sources of temptation and supply, ~ David Foster Wallace

What a battle a man must fight everywhere to maintain his standing army of thoughts, and march with them in orderly array throughthe always hostile country! How many enemies there are to sane thinking! Every soldier has succumbed to them before he enlists for those other battles. ~ Henry David Thoreau

How many of my basic principles were upset by this change in my attitude toward the Christian Social movement! My views with regard to anti-Semitism thus succumbed to the passage of time, and this was my greatest transformation of all. ~ Adolf Hitler

The old notion that brevity is the essence of wit has succumbed to the modern idea that tedium is the essence of quality. ~ Russell Baker

Having completed its conquest of California in 1844, the United States looked across the Pacific for new business opportunities. In 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Tokyo (then called Edo) Bay with four men-of-war, and handed over a letter for the Japanese emperor from the American president which began with the ominous words, 'You know that the United States of America now extend from sea to sea.' Denied an audience with the emperor, Perry retreated with subtle threats to return with more firepower if the Japanese did not agree to open their ports to American trade. They refused. He did as he said; and the Japanese succumbed. ~ Pankaj Mishra

He watched my reaction to his every touch. My chest rose and fell with heavy breaths. Everything felt heavy and I succumbed under his potent gaze. What lay beneath was hellfire and I couldn't wait to tango with his demons. ~ Kate Stewart

But human anatomy and human endurance are variable. While the much younger nun had succumbed to her injuries, Ursula's heart kept beating, her body unwilling to surrender its soul. Not a miracle, merely one of those quirks of fate, like the child who survives a fall from a sixth-floor window, and is only scratched. ~ Tess Gerritsen

In 2001, my father finally succumbed to the bone cancer that had tortured him for seven years. His last weeks were a terrible, black icing on the cake, the agony, the slow twisting, thinning and snapping of his skeleton. Everything fell apart. ~ Peter Baynham

As a kid, I succumbed to peer pressure; I created an image of myself that was not true. But that belief system ended with the death of a close friend. It was then that I reached out for help from my father. It wasn't the teachings of The Four Agreements exactly, it was just my father's teachings in general. And because of this, I am grateful to continue my family's legacy. In this way, I say "thank you" to my family and teachers before me. ~ Miguel Angel Ruiz

I was extremely close with my mother and my grandmothers, we shared our lives - fully, honestly - and it was heightened as each succumbed to cancer. Little was hidden between us. No time. And what was hidden, turned inward. I made a vow to speak. Speak or die. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

We all have regrets, Allison," he said, his voice unbearably gentle. "We all have succumbed to the darkness and the monster. There is not one vampire in the world who has not. Even James has points in his past he would change, if he could. The important thing is that you do not let these points define you. James gave up fighting it long ago. For you and I, it is a constant uphill battle not to give in, not to become that demon, and it will be that way for eternity. I will not lie and tell you it gets any easier. ~ Julie Kagawa

No wonder so many women had succumbed to this man, had thrown away their reputations and their honor for him ... had even, if rumor could be believed, threatened to kill themselves when he left them. He was sensuality incarnate. ~ Lisa Kleypas

The world has become a photographable present, and the photographed present has been entirely eternalized. Seemingly ripped from the clutch of death, in reality it has succumbed to it. ~ Siegfried Kracauer

But we as a culture have lost the deep intuitive understanding that Creation exists on many levels. We have succumbed to the scientific viewpoint. Nothing characterizes 'the modern world' more completely than the loss of faith in Transcendence, our arrogant lack of any genuine appreciation for levels of reality above our little everyday affairs. The deepest wounds to the human soul have been caused by our lack of appreciation of levels. By shutting the door on transcendence, we have cut off any light from that world that might have illuminated this one, leaving us in darkness,leaving us with nothing but a dead world where scientists are merely performing an autopsy. ~ Andrew Cort

Before the scientific rationalism took hold of our minds and before we became succumbed to a materialistic worldview, the Western philosophy was holistic and relational, and even now there are many scientists in the West seeing things totally interconnected. ~ Satish Kumar

If I learned one thing that day, it was that Peter Bartholomew, Arnulf, even Saint John the Divine had all been wrong. The world did not have to end with ten-horned beasts and dragons, angels and fantastical monsters. The prophets who foretold those things had succumbed to the extravagance of their imaginations, and it had played them false. Nothing on earth could be so terrible as men. ~ Tom Harper

Father Paul was at the start of life. His glassy convictions needed protection. They waited patiently until he too, succumbed to the unbearable unevenness of God's will, the sureness of his grace, the darkness of his mercy. ~ Kathleen Tessaro

One of the truths about the world is that there are two superpowers, one a huge power which happens to have its boot on your neck; another, a smaller power which happens to have its boot on other people's necks. I think that anyone in the Third World would be making a grave error if they succumbed to illusions about these matters ~ Noam Chomsky

As I lay in bed trying to figure out the tangle I had gotten myself into, I realised temptation struck human beings in different forms. In the form of chocolates for children, drugs for young adults, bribe money for people in influential positions, and sometimes in the form of lust –like the kind I had been struck with. Human beings succumbed to this temptation despite knowing too well that they would suffer the consequences days, weeks, months or even years later. ~ Jagdish Joghee

In the patient who succumbed, the cause of death was evidently something which was not found in the patient who recovered; this something we must determine, and then we can act on the phenomena or recognize and foresee them accurately. But not by statistics shall we succeed in this; never have statistics taught anything, and never can they teach anything about the nature of the phenomenon. ~ Claude Bernard

Blacks who have not succumbed to the victim culture have been, are, and will be doing quite well - all on their own, without handouts, affirmative action, and other patronizing measures. ~ Tammy Bruce

It is only after an unknown number of unrecorded labors, after a host of noble hearts have succumbed in discouragement, convinced that their cause is lost; it is only then that cause triumphs. ~ Francois Guizot

There in the dark her memory was refreshed, and she succumbed to her earlier dreams. Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another - physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion. In equating physical beauty with virtue, she stripped her mind, bound it, and collected self-contempt by the heap. She forgot lust and simple caring for. She regarded love as possessive mating, and romance as the goal of the spirit. It would be for her a well-spring from which she would draw the most destructive emotions, deceiving the lover and seeking to imprison the beloved, curtailing freedom in every way.
Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye ~ Toni Morrison

Young Sathian was flirtatious, titillating, quick-witted, and brilliant. He left a trail of broken hearts across the land as he teased and taunted his victims with his beauty and charm. Both women and men succumbed to his joie de vivre and panache as he was an untypical Ange'el that carried the sunshine in his smile and in his eyes. ~ Jamie Le Fay

It is difficult to believe that even idiots ever succumbed to such transparent contradictions, to such gaudy processions of mere counter-words, to so vast and obvious a nonsensicalitysentence after sentence that has no apparent meaning at all
stuff quite as bad as the worst bosh of Warren Gamaliel Harding. ~ H.L. Mencken

The next morning, between services, in an alcove space used for private prayer, Heinrich confessed to an elder that he had succumbed to the temptation of lust and could no longer be of service to the church. He said that he had seen more of God's glory in the body of a half-naked girl than in the worship services of thirty years combined. That he would like to continue mediating on the glory of God in this fashion. ~ Jamie Quatro

If I had succumbed to peer pressure I would still be trolloping about society as a male and probably have just offed myself by now. ~ Natalie De Clare

In spite of their gross theological error, charismatics demand acceptance within mainstream evangelicalism. And evangelicals have largely succumbed to those demands, responding with outstretched arms and a welcoming smile. In so doing, mainstream evangelicalism has unwittingly invited an enemy into the camp. The gates have been flung open to a Trojan horse of subjectivism, experientialism, ecumenical compromise, and heresy. Those who compromise in this way are playing with strange fire and placing themselves in grave danger. ~ John F. MacArthur Jr.

Oh," said her husband, sounding deeply pleased at something he'd read in his letter.
"What?" Bridget sat up, inadvertently spilling several drops of honey on her breast.
Sadly, she succumbed to her husband's fondness for nudity soon after their marriage.
Valentine glanced up, but his gaze was immediately drawn to the honey slowly dripping down her breast.
"Val..." Bridget moved to scoop the honey up with her finger.
His hand darted out, catching hers.
"Oh, don't," he breathed, leaning over her, forcing her flat on her back.
He bent, closing his azure eyes, and licked her breast almost reverently.
She shuddered.
"It's the middle of the day," she whispered.
His eyes opened, wicked and amused. "I know. Your favorite."
She smiled up at him, threading her fingers through his golden hair. "I love you."
"And I love you," he murmured against her lips, before taking her mouth hard and possessively.
Their letters fell to the floor, abandoned, but Bridget didn't care at all.
She was with her true love and the world outside could wait. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt

There have been times when I could have succumbed to some form of bribe, or could have had my way by offering one. But ever since that night in Dover prison I have never been tempted to break my vow.. My Parents always drummed into me that all you have life is your reputation: you may be very rich, but if you lose your good name you'll never be happy. ~ Richard Branson

When we are needy Christ does His best work, but be warned. Someone, maybe even some well-meaning soul, is going to tell you, "Don't worry. God will never give you more than you can handle."
I double-dog-dare you to find that in the scriptures. The closest you can come is found in 1 Corinthians 10:13: "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."
This talks about an escape from temptation; it does not say that you will not be faced with more than you can handle. The mother whose baby is born and dies, the father who loses his eyesight in a construction accident and can no longer provide for his family, the child who hurries home from school every day hoping that his mother hasn't yet succumbed to the cancer that he sees ravish her body day by day . . . all of these souls have more than they can handle - on their own.
But with Christ as their companion on the journey through life - and only with Christ - all things are possible. Without Him, we fail no matter how far we manage on our own. We can never cross over without Christ and His all-access Atonement. ~ Toni Sorenson

The point is, Ilsa Hermann had decided to make suffering her triumph. When it refused to let go of her, she succumbed to it. She embraced it. ~ Markus Zusak

As Merripen gave the ribbons to a stableman at the mews, Amelia glanced toward the end of the alley.
A pair of street youths crouched near a tiny fire, roasting something on sticks. Amelia did not want to speculate on the nature of the objects being heated. Her attention moved to a group - three men and a woman - illuminated in the uncertain blaze. It appeared two of the men were engaged in fisticuffs. However, they were so inebriated that their contest looked like a performance of dancing bears.
The woman's gown was made of gaudily colored fabric, the bodice gaping to reveal the plump hills of her breasts. She seemed amused by the spectacle of two men battling over her, while a third attempted to break up the fracas.
"'Ere now, my fine jacks," the woman called out in a Cockney accent, "I said I'd take ye both on - no need for a cockfight!"
"Stay back," Merripen murmured.
Pretending not to hear, Amelia drew closer for a better view. It wasn't the sight of the brawl that was so interesting - even their village, peaceful little Primrose Place, had its share of fistfights. All men, no matter what their situation, occasionally succumbed to their lower natures. What attracted Amelia's notice was the third man, the would-be peacemaker, as he darted between the drunken fools and attempted to reason with them.
He was every bit as well dressed as the gentlemen on either side … but it was obvious this man was no gentleman. He was black-haired and swa ~ Lisa Kleypas

She told Mik, "You have perfect violin-playing muscles."
"And you, with your mighty puppeteer arms. We put the chimaera to shame."
She stopped fanning and fell backward onto the bed. It was a bad bed in a cheap motel, and the flop jarred her teeth. "Ow," she said without conviction.
"Hey. You're turn isn't even half up."
"I know. I just succumbed to ennui."
"Just now."
"Just exactly now. You saw it happen. ~ Laini Taylor

Nothing and no one in the world could kill the love I have for you. I have surrendered my whole individuality, the very essence of my being to you. I have given you my body time after time to treat as you pleased. All the hoardings of my imagination I have laid bare to you. There isn't a recess in my brain into which you haven't penetrated. I have clung to you and caressed you and slept with you and I would like to tell the whole world that I clamour for you. You are my lover and I am your mistress, and kingdoms and empires and governments have tottered and succumbed before now to that mighty combination
the most powerful in the world. ~ Violet Trefusis

Before I succumbed to the sweet lull of his voice, I made one last request. "Stay".
I was asleep before he could answer, but in my dreams I heard him reply forever. ~ S.L. Naeole

She wished she hadn't succumbed to irritation. Because she wanted to know about his inner feelings. She always thought people were like pieces of art glass
strong enough to handle and use, delicate enough to shatter under a strong blow, and filled with swirls of color that fascinated the eye. But while most people
and most glass
allowed light through, she could discern nothing of Devlin's heart and soul through the smoke and mirrors he held before him. ~ Christina Dodd

Has it ever occurred to you how lucky you are to be alive? More than 99 percent of all the creatures that have ever lived have died without progeny, but not a single one of your ancestors falls into that group! ... Not a single one of your ancestors, all the way back to the bacteria, succumbed to predation before reproducing, or lost out in the competition for a mate. ~ Daniel Dennett

But it was in the life-saving competition that Stanley Judkins's conduct was most blameable and had the most far-reaching effects. The practice, as you know, was to throw a selected lower boy, of suitable dimensions, fully dressed, with his hands and feet tied together, into the deepest part of Cuckoo Weir, and to time the Scout whose turn it was to rescue him. On every occasion when he was entered for this competition Stanley Judkins was seized, at the critical moment, with a severe fit of cramp, which caused him to roll on the ground and utter alarming cries. This naturally distracted the attention of those present from the boy in the water, and had it not been for the presence of Arthur Wilcox the death-roll would have been a heavy one. As it was, the Lower Master found it necessary to take a firm line and say that the competition must be discontinued. It was in vain that Mr. Beasley Robinson represented to him that in five competitions only four lower boys had actually succumbed. The Lower Master said that he would be the last to interfere in any way with the work of the Scouts; but that three of these boys had been valued members of his choir, and both he and Dr. Ley felt that the inconvenience caused by the losses outweighed the advantages of the competitions. Besides, the correspondence with the parents of these boys had become annoying, and even distressing: they were no longer satisfied with the printed form which he was in the habit of sending out, and more than one ~ M.R. James

The words were casual, but that was panic in his eyes. Not-- not the controlling fear Tamlin had once succumbed to, but...genuine terror of not knowing where I was, i I needed help. Just as I would want to know where he was, if he needed help, if he vanished when our enemies surrounded us. ~ Sarah J. Maas

The color scheme of the whole sanatorium seemed to be based on liver. Dark, glowering woodwork, burnt-brown leather chairs, walls that might once have been white but had succumbed under a spreading malady of mod or damp. A mottled brown linoleum sealed off the floor. ~ Sylvia Plath

What weakens this force, what makes you not feel it or even doubt its existence, is the degree to which you have succumbed to another force in life - social pressures to conform. This counterforce can be very powerful. You want to fit into a group. Unconsciously, you might feel that what makes you different is embarrassing or painful. Your parents often act as a counterforce as well. They may seek to direct you to a career path that is lucrative and comfortable. If these counterforces become strong enough, you can lose complete contact with your uniqueness, with who you really are. Your inclination and desires become modeled on those of others. ~ Robert Greene

Every time I am fearful I think to myself, the reason they do this is to discourage me from doing what I do. Hence, if I discontinue my work I will have succumbed to my fears. ~ Shirin Ebadi

Arthur Schlesinger admits that JFK "succumbed to the fake omniscience of insiders". Prolonged immersion in the self-contained, self-justifying world of clandestinity and deception erodes the reality principle. ~ Garry Wills

It had been centuries since he'd last succumbed to the kinds of feelings that usually signalled an impending catastrophic bout of self-destructiveness. He either wanted to kill something, or he wanted to fuck something...and the latter something was Cat. ~ Larissa Ione

They entered the summer parlor, where the Ravenels chatted amiably with his sisters, Phoebe and Seraphina.
Phoebe, the oldest of the Challon siblings, had inherited their mother's warm and deeply loving nature, and their father's acerbic wit. Five years ago she had married her childhood sweetheart, Henry, Lord Clare, who had suffered from a chronic illness for most of his life. The worsening symptoms had gradually reduced him to a shadow of the man he'd once been, and he'd finally succumbed while Phoebe was pregnant with their second child. Although the first year of mourning was over, Phoebe hadn't yet returned to her former self. She went outdoors so seldom that her freckles had vanished, and she looked wan and thin. The ghost of grief still lingered in her gaze.
Their younger sister, Seraphina, an effervescent eighteen-year-old with strawberry-blonde hair, was talking to Cassandra. Although Seraphina was old enough to have come out in society by now, the duke and duchess had persuaded her to wait another year. A girl with her sweet nature, her beauty, and her mammoth dowry would be targeted by every eligible man in Europe and beyond. For Seraphina, the London Season would be a gauntlet, and the more prepared she was, the better. ~ Lisa Kleypas

But after a while, obeying a new script that has just occurred to her, she begins to behave differently from the way she has acted the last two times they have met. She begins a false performance of openness, as if she has succumbed to his persuasiveness. ~ Natasha Walter

By the time I'm able to pull the sack from my head, the corridor is silent. I look down at it
it's a dark-blue pillowcase with the words "Faction before blood" painted on it.
Whoever they are, they certainly have a flair for the dramatic.
The place where you made your confession.
There's only one place that could be: Candor headquarters, where I succumbed to the truth serum. ~ Veronica Roth

1945 Elsie, I hope this letter finds its way to your good hands. Tobias and I are among friends in Zurich. The news of the Allied invasion of Garmisch is bittersweet. Though we are German, our Fatherland is no longer a welcoming place. The Jewish families I hid for over a year - the Mailers and the Zuckermanns - lost nearly all their extended family members over the course of these wretched years. Thanks to your engagement ring, we were able to bribe the SS guards and smuggle Nanette Mailer, her friend, and the Zuckermanns' niece, Tabita, from KZ Dachau before the march. Unfortunately, Tobias's sister, Cecile, succumbed to ~ Sarah McCoy

Warren Dandridge had insisted that poker was a Christian game: Players who practiced virtue-- learning and respecting the odds, keeping their emotions in check, managing their bankrolls intelligently-- tended to prosper, while those who succumbed to vice-- chasing long shots, letting passion rule reason-- went the way of all unrepentant sinners. ~ Matt Ruff

He who takes offense when offense was not intended is a fool, yet he who takes offense when offense is intended is an even greater fool for he has succumbed to the will of his adversary. ~ Brigham Young

We are coming to the times when passive Christianity and passive Christians will cease to exist. There is a maturity, a discipline and a divine militancy coming upon the people of God. Those who have succumbed to humanistic and idealistic theologies may have a hard time with this, but we must understand that God is a military God. The title that he uses ten times more than any other is "the Lord of Hosts", or "Lord of armies". There is a martial aspect to his character that we must understand and embrace for the times and the job to which we are now coming. ~ Rick Joyner

In America, we have always taken it as an article of faith that we 'battle' cancer; we attack it with knives, we poison it with chemotherapy or we blast it with radiation. If we are fortunate, we 'beat' the cancer. If not, we are posthumously praised for having 'succumbed after a long battle.' ~ Abraham Verghese

The frenzy with which much of the church busies herself with things peripheral to the kingdom in a frantic attempt by her own ingenuity and effort to make God's name holy or make his kingdom come is a sign that something is radically wrong. The church has lost connection with Christ, her living head; she has listened to the siren calls of this world; she has succumbed to the prevailing culture instead of what Christ Jesus created her to be. ~ Harold L. Senkbeil

Are you ready?" her mother asked. A small part of Aurora screamed in revolt; she wanted to ask for permission to leave, to disappear into the wildlands and find another life. But the queen had lost enough in this life. Her husband succumbed to a disease that her magic couldn't touch. And her son had captured a storm's heart at the expense of his own. And the only one she had left, her daughter ... her daughter looked the part of the perfect Stormling princess -- so impressive, so ethereal, that no one would ever dare to think the truth. That she had no storm magic at all. ~ Cora Carmack

Metal is made up of many silly cliches, and Dio's songs rarely shied away from a good cheeseball lyric about medieval knights and crystal balls. But the amazing thing is, Dio the man never succumbed to the typical ravages of drugs, booze or hideous all-body tattoos. He never gained 75 pounds later in life or lost most of his voice through merciless shredding and ended it all playing county fairs for 19 drunk dudes in a barn before collapsing in a heap in a motel room in Jersey. There's a lesson in there somewhere. Or everywhere. ~ Mark Morford

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, if so urged by hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we we ~ Charles Darwin

Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of our age is the subsiding of all other concerns to the predominance of politics. And thus, we have succumbed to a Lyndon Johnson-like dependence upon the power of the state.

The tragic result has been that all of life has been politicized, and if the new social engineers have their way, politics will increase in power - especially in its power to penetrate into our everyday lives and rule our destinies. For in fact politics has become, for many of the political elite, a kind of state religion. ~ George Grant

He was all sin and mystery, and Miranda feared the pleasures he offered as she feared the fires of hell. Yet when she succumbed at last, it was not because her body was weak but because her mind was curious. ~ Anya Seton

On the seventh day, Howard turned off the trail and sat by the river and smoked a pipeful of tobacco that he had packed for the hermit. As he smoked, he listened to the voices in the rapids. They murmured about a place somewhere deep in the woods where a set of bones lay on a bed of moss, above which a troop of mournful flies had kept vigil the previous autumn until the frosts came, and they, too, had succumbed. ~ Paul Harding

Many Christians have succumbed to the anti-intellectual spirit of the world, ~ Vincent Cheung

For six months, from October to March, I succumbed to my natural tendency for reclusion, living between my bed and my desk. ~ Anne Garréta

Mom could have shared her suffering with her children, but she didn't. She could have succumbed to a world of pain and sorrow, but she didn't. Instead she loved each of us deeper, and found even more reasons to celebrate our lives together. ~ Ron Mayes

Nicholas wanted to scream until his throat bled. Or tear apart a wall of concrete with his bare hands. Anything – anything – to get the woman off his mind. The temptation she offered. The peace, the hope. They were killing him, taking away the need for revenge and replacing it with the need for her. As though she alone could collect the torn pieces of his life, stitch them back together, and help make him whole again.

He couldn't take it, feeling again. Needing again after so many years spent in disconnect. It was too much, and if he hadn't run from her like a total coward, he would have succumbed – lost himself inside the woman and given up to oblivion without a single ounce of remorse. ~ Angela B. Wade

She succumbed to the eternal feminine passion for bargains. ~ Georgette Heyer

People of Redwood Ridge always referred to themselves as victims when they were found in the path of Cupid's arrow, wielded by the sisters. They ran. They hid. They resisted. In the end, they succumbed. He was the sheriff. He got around. He saw and heard things most didn't. And the truth was, not a solitary "victim" was unhappy after The Battleaxes were through with them. ~ Kelly Moran

I flipped through Xuanzang's records almost 1400 years later, and thought that the written word was a fragile truth. His records were meticulous, but there was a vastness left unsaid. There were spools of thought that fell through the cracks and were swallowed by time. I hungered to know if he ever lost sight of is training, if on empty mountain roads loneliness crept into the sides of his mind till he thought he was mad, if in foreign marketplaces he succumbed to desire or greed or temper. ~ Mishi Saran

In all the houses keys to memorizing objects and feelings had been written. But the system demanded so much vigilance and moral strength that many succumbed to the spell of an imaginary reality, one invented by themselves, which was less practical for them but more comforting. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

At the same time, he expressed accurately and powerfully the state of mind of the countless underground fighters dying in the battle against Nazism. Why did they throw their lives into the scale? Why did they accept tor­ture and death? They had no point of support like the Fuhrer for the Germans or the New Faith for the Communists. It is doubtful whether most of them believed in Christ. It could only have been loyalty, loyalty to something called fatherland or honor, but something stronger than any name. In one of his stories, a young boy, tortured by the police and knowing that he will be shot, gives the name of his friend because he is afraid to die alone. They meet before the firing squad, and the betrayed forgives his betrayer. This forgiveness cannot be justified by any utilitarian ethic; there is no reason to forgive traitors. Had this story been written by a Soviet author, the betrayed would have turned away with disdain from the man who had succumbed to base weakness. ~ Czesław Miłosz

I succumbed to hedonism. ~ Simon Le Bon

Too often, I have not been what I wanted to be; I've succumbed to pressures. Yes, I have. The things I've done that I liked, I've always done against advice. ~ Kirk Douglas

Death is the great equalizer of human beings. Death is the boundary that we need to measure the precious texture of our lives. All people owe a death. There is no use vexing about inevitable degeneration and death because far greater people than me succumbed to death's endless sleep without living as many years as me. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

...they had succumbed to an impersonal and anonymous mode of consciousness which precluded personal feeling and which was devoid of a secure sense of self-identity. Everything tended to be seen in 'abstract' terms, as theoretical possibilities which could be contemplated and compared but to the concrete realization of which people were unwilling to commit themselves. If they attended to their own attitudes or emotions it was through a thick haze of pseudo-scientific expressions or cliche-ridden phrases which they had picked up from books or newspapers rather than in the direct light of their own inner experience. Living had become a matter of knowing rather than doing; accumulating information and learning things by rote as opposed to taking decisions that bore the stamp of individual passion or conviction. ~ Patrick L. Gardiner

He was a soldier. He was a shepherd. He was a beggar, and a king. He was a farmer, gleeman, sailor, carpenter. He was born, lived, and died Aiel. He died mad, he died rotting, he died of sickness, accident, age. He was executed, and multitudes cheered his death. He proclaimed himself the Dragon Reborn and flung his banner across the sky; he ran from the Power and hid; he lived and died never knowing. He held off the madness and the sickness for years; he succumbed between two winters. Sometimes Moiraine came and took him away from the Two Rivers, alone or with those of his friends who had survived Winternight; sometimes she did not. Sometimes other Aes Sedai came for him. Sometimes Red Ajah. Egwene married him; Egwene, stern-faced in stole of Amyrlin Seat, led Aes Sedai who gentled him; Egwene, with tears in her eyes, plunged a dagger into his heart, and he thanked her as he died. He loved other women, married other women. Elayne, and Min, and a fair-haired farmer's daughter met on the road to Caemlyn, and women he had never seen before he lived those lives. A hundred lives. More. So many he could not count them. And at the end of every life, as he lay dying, as he drew his final breath, a voice whispered in his ear. I have won again, Lews Therin. Flicker. ~ Robert Jordan

Releasing her wrist, he raised his shaking hand and brushed disheveled auburn hair back from her face. Her features were relaxed in sleep. Dirt-smudged. Damp with the tears she had shed for him.
At his touch, she made a sound somewhere in the back of her throat and snuggled closer with a sigh.
He didn't know who she was.
He didn't know who he was.
But in that moment, he loved her for freeing him.
The dog voiced a plaintive whine.
Speech still eluding him, he sent feelings of calm to the loyal animal.
Then, taking the woman's small, pale hand in his, he tucked it against his chest, pressed his forehead to hers, and succumbed to a deep healing sleep. ~ Dianne Duvall

The tragedy of a species becoming unfit for life by over-evolving one ability is not confined to humankind. Thus it is thought, for instance, that certain deer in paleontological times succumbed as they acquired overly-heavy horns. The mutations must be considered blind, they work, are thrown forth, without any contact of interest with their environment. In depressive states, the mind may be seen in the image of such an antler, in all its fantastic splendour pinning its bearer to the ground. ~ Peter Wessel Zapffe

In a move that will remain in Irish annals as a stigma comparable to the potato famine, the Dublin government succumbed to ECB blackmail: make the German creditors of Ireland's commercial banks whole, even a bank that was closed down and thus no longer systemically important for Ireland's financial sector, or else. ~ Yanis Varoufakis

Among the fluctuation of the river currents, an abyss as green as the sea, its extension and profundity as immense as the ocean opened before me: the eyes of a beautiful girl.
I succumbed into that abyss instantly, like a man who falls from the highest cliff into the ocean …
… and I drowned. ~ Mya Robarts

Ronnie James Dio died the other day, quietly succumbed to a relatively sudden onset of stomach cancer and up and left the planet in a blaze of stage fire, dragonsmoke and general metal awesomeness. Maybe you heard. ~ Mark Morford

So buy a home. Find a pretty girl to marry. Settle down and start a family."
Bram shook his head. Impossible suggestions, all. He was not about to resign his commission at the age of nine-and-twenty, while England remained at war. And he damned well wasn't going to marry. Like his father before him, he intended to serve until they pried his flintlock from his cold, dead grip. And while officers were permitted to bring their wives, Bram firmly believed gently bred women didn't belong on campaign. His own mother was proof of that. She'd succumbed to the bloody flux in India, a short time before young Bram had been sent to England for school.
He sat forward in his chair. "Sir Lewis, you don't understand. I cut my teeth on rationed biscuit. I could march before I could speak. I'm not a man to settle down. While England remains at war, I cannot and will not resign my commission. It's more than my duty, sir. It's my life. I…" He shook his head. "I can't do anything else."
"If you won't resign, there are other ways of helping the war effort."
"Deuce it, I've been through all this with my superiors. I will not accept a so-called promotion that means shuffling papers in the War Office." He gestured at the alabaster sarcophagus in the corner. "You might as well stuff me in that coffin and seal the lid. I am a soldier, not a secretary."
The man's blue eyes softened. "You're a man, Victor. You're human."
"I'm my father's son," he shot back, pounding the desk ~ Tessa Dare

Tertuliano Máximo Afonso is greatly in need of stimuli to distract him, he lives alone and gets bored, or, to speak with the clinical exactitude that the present day requires, he has succumbed to the temporary weakness of spirit ordinarily known as depression. To get a clear idea of his situation, suffice it to say that he was married but can no longer remember what led him into matrimony, that he is divorced and cannot now bring himself to ponder the reasons for the separation. On the other hand, while the ill-fated union produced no children who are now demanding to be handed, gratis, the world on a silver platter, he has, for some time, viewed sweet History, the serious, educational subject which he had felt called upon to teach and which could have been a soothing refuge for him, as a chore without meaning and a beginning without an end. ~ Jose Saramago

A thousand happy moments succumbed to history. It was the happiest hour of the year, worst time of our lives. I can still smell the ruins from that cold dark brute stormy October night. ~ Parul Wadhwa

I decided, as I succumbed to sleep, that men should come with manuals, subtitles, and reset buttons. ~ Penny Reid

Public libraries have succumbed to the same pressures that have overwhelmed the basic cultural functions of museums and universities, aims that should remain what they were, not because the old ways are always better but because in this case they were the right ones: the sustaining of standards, the preservation of quality, the conservation of literacy's history, the education of the heart, eye and mind. Now libraries devote far too much of their restricted space, and their limited budget, to public amusement. It is a fact of philistine life that amusement is where the money is. ~ William H Gass

The sad truth is, John and I and the kids only took Route 66 once on our trips to Disneyland. Our family, like the rest of America, succumbed to the lure of faster highways, more direct routes, higher speed limits. We forgot about taking the slow way. It makes you wonder if something inside us knows that our lives are going to pass faster than we could ever realize. So we run around like chickens about to lose our heads. Which makes our little two- or three-week vacations with our families more important than ever...
As for the time that elapsed between those vacations, that's another thing altogether. It seems to have all passed breathlessly, like some extended whisper of days, months, years, decades. (pp.39-40) ~ Michael Zadoorian

No society ever seems to have succumbed to boredom. Man has developed an obvious capacity for surviving the pompous reiteration of the commonplace. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith

I succumbed to the lure of the oracle, he thought.
And he sensed that succumbing to this lure might be to fix himself upon a single-track life. Could it be, he wondered, that the oracle didn't tell the future? Could it be that the oracle made the future? ~ Frank Herbert

A fanatical psychosis of contempt possessed us and we succumbed to it gladly. In it I recognized the real thing, my genuine feeling about these festivals by international troupes of castrated morons and rarified conformist cows. ~ Ludvík Vaculík

I don't feel like I'm half as important as Elliott Smith or Kurt Cobain. And I'm not going to be somebody that became so unhappy that he succumbed. ~ Christopher Owens

Rhys couldn't help wondering... had he known the first time he'd met Helen that this man was her father, would it have mattered?
Maybe at first. He wasn't sure. But there was no doubt that eventually he would have succumbed to the irresistible attraction of Helen, the magic she would always hold for him. In his mind, there was no connection between Helen and Vance, regardless of physical resemblance, blood, or heredity. There was only good in Helen. That gentle, valiant spirit, that perfect mixture of strength and kindness, was all her own. ~ Lisa Kleypas

I've succumbed to the absolute power of the man that pulls, culls, calls my unwitting submission. And I've embraced the power of my submission to draw him in further, to have him kneeling and worshiping what he's conquered. I've known surrender and strength with him. True freedom. And a hell of a lot of orgasms. ~ Willow Madison